Spiritual Counseling – Part Two

What Works:
I work with both individuals and couples to assist them to awaken to what is working and not working in their relationship with themselves and others. My focus is on the realization that when we open our hearts to the truth of what is happening (what we are creating), we have an opportunity to change it. In these profound moments of awareness, the dialogue of the mind (the tape that runs twenty-four hours a day – seven days a week) stops controlling our lives. By challenging our inner dialogue and beliefs with the light of awareness, we dissolve the thoughts, the dramas, and the viewpoints that cause our suffering. To meet our own dramas head on requires courage – and as spiritual counselor I suggest exercises designed to help free clients of the often very disparaging and severely limiting thought patterns that rule their lives, that have come to define who they believe themselves to be.
The focus of my counseling work is to give full attention to the present; how to give attention to behaviors, to reactions to situations, moods, thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires as they occur. It is clear to me that as we learn to be present enough to watch all those things, compassionately and without judgment, we can then dissolve limiting beliefs, viewpoints and dramas through the power of clear presence. From this powerful place of presence and acceptance, we make clear, effective and profoundly positive changes in our lives. Our mind stops looking to the past for identity or to the future for fulfillment. It simply stops and is quiet.
Please consider having private sessions via the telephone from the privacy of your own home. It is an extremely effective way to change your life without having to travel anywhere and enables me to work with people from all over the world. Frequently people ask me if telephone sessions are as effective as those done in person. In my experience, they can be just as effective and sometimes even more effective – there may even be fewer distractions to deal with. Rather than needing to drive through traffic, through varying weather conditions, or rush to get to appointments on time, many clients are able to speak with me without any added stress.

Love Relationships:
On a very fundamental level love relationships hold the possibility of discovering oneself manifest in a different form. So, there is a great potential to fully accept who your partner really is just as you would accept that same truth about yourself. However, a fundamental pitfall with being in an intimate relationship with another is that most people are looking for their partner to fulfill their need for love, at the expense of looking within for it. By that, I mean that we tend to lose ourselves to a story of how and what a relationship should look like and be – instead of opening to what the relationship actually is in the moment. Miracles can happen when both partners are committed to stepping out of old patterns of shame and blame and take responsibility for their part in the drama of the relationship.
When working with couples, I strongly recommend that the three of us work together, and that we also meet separately from time to time to delve into personal issues that inevitably arise. I need for each member of the relationship to be clear that this is not couples therapy as much as it is a way to find the freedom of who you both are at the core essence of your being. Each partner is responsible for their own actions and reactions, and we are not in the business of identifying one partner as right or wrong. Instead, together we work to augment communication skills based on a clear understanding of how each partner perpetuates limiting beliefs. The emphasis is not on what your partner is doing or not doing or saying or not saying. It is the responsibility of each partner to use his or her personal integrity to appropriately respond to whatever arises in the relationship. I ask that each partner do so without any attachment to what has happened in the past, to not act out of fear or a need to control the outcome, and to release all expectations about what to do next.

Participation:
How often we meet depends on you and your schedule, your financial circumstances and your level of commitment to the process. I do, however, feel that it is highly beneficial for those who come to me for counseling to commit to at least two – one-hour long sessions in person or by phone each month. I give out homework and ask that people e-mail me that homework before the start of the next session. I am happy to discuss any unusual situations with you.

Payments: My hourly (non cash) PayPal fee for an in office or telephone Spiritual Counseling session is $70 if payment is made via PayPal and are due before or on the day of sessions. When three sessions are paid for at once, the total payment is $200. Cash payments ($65) are also accepted at the beginning of an office visit. I do not accept checks as payment for spiritual counseling sessions. Please click here to make a PayPal payment.